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The search for something permanent is one of the deepest of the instincts leading men to philosophy.

Bertrand Russell

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Bertrand Russell
Age: 97 †
Born: 1872
Born: May 18
Died: 1970
Died: February 2
Analytic Philosopher
Autobiographer
Epistemologist
Essayist
Journalist
Logician
Mathematician
Metaphysician
Peace Activist
Philosopher
Tryleg
Bertrand Arthur William Russell
Russell
Bertrand Russell
3rd Earl Russell
Bertrand Russell
Earl Russell
Bertrand Arthur William Russell
3rd Earl Russell
Deepest
Leading
Search
Permanent
Instinct
Philosophy
Something
Men
Instincts

More quotes by Bertrand Russell

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The satisfaction to be derived from success in a great constructive enterprise is one of the most massive that life has to offer.
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We must be sceptical even of our scepticism.
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In a logically perfect language, there will be one word and no more for every simple object, and everything that is not simple will be expressed by a combination of words, by a combination derived, of course, from the words for the simple things that enter in, one word for each simple component.
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To discover a system for the avoidance of war is a vital need of our civilisation.
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Can a society in which thought and technique are scientific persist for a long period, as, for example, ancient Egypt persisted, or does it necessarily contain within itself forces which must bring either decay or explosion?
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European travellers find the Japanese a smiling race.
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One of the painful things about our time is that those who feel certainty are stupid, and those with any imagination and understanding are filled with doubt and indecision.
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All the conditions of happiness are realized in the life of the man of science.
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War does not determine who is right - only who is left.
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The pleasure of work is open to anyone who can develop some specialised skill, provided that he can get satisfaction from the exercise of his skill without demanding universal applause.
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On the one hand, philosophy is to keep us thinking about things that we may come to know, and on the other hand to keep us modestly aware of how much that seems like knowledge isn't knowledge
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The doctrine (of) maintaining that the language of daily life, with words used in their ordinary meanings, suffices for philosophy . . . I find myself totally unable to accept . . . . Because it makes almost inevitable the perpetuation amongst philosophers of the muddle-headedness they have taken over from common sense.
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The demand for certainty is one which is natural to man, but is nevertheless an intellectual vice. If you take your children for a picnic on a doubtful day, they will demand a dogmatic answer as to whether it will be fine or wet, and be disappointed in you when you cannot be sure.
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The opinions that are held with passion are always those for which no good ground exists indeed the passion is the measure of the holders lack of rational conviction. Opinions in politics and religion are almost always held passionately.
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Government can easily exist without laws, but law cannot exist without government.
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All's well that ends well which is the epitaph I should put on my tombstone if I were the last man left alive.
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Is a man what he seems to the astronomer, a tiny lump of impure carbon and water crawling impotently on a small and unimportant planet? Or is he what he appears to Hamlet? Is he perhaps both as once?
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You may, if you are an old-fashioned schoolmaster, wish to consider yourself full of universal benevolence and at the same time derive great pleasure from caning boys. In order to reconcile these two desires you have to persuade yourself that caning
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Drunkenness is temporary suicide.
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Why is propaganda so much more successful when it stirs up hatred than when it tries to stir up friendly feeling?
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